Coaching education survey results – Part 1

I recently ran a survey on the subject of coaching education, for which there were over 200 responses (much thanks to those who took part). I was looking to gain better insights in a few different ways.

1. What does my audience look like in terms of experience, coaching level, coaching position, and the like?
2. How do coaches prefer to get and consume their coaching education?
3. What are the areas of coaching they want to get better at?

Demographics

I’ll start off by sharing some basic demographics of survey responders. Probably not surprisingly, nearly 80% indicated they’re from the USA. At least 38 different states are represented (might be more, but 4 people failed to indicate their state). California and Wisconsin topped the list as the two with double-digit participants. Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia were all in the upper single digits. Somewhat surprisingly, there were only 6 from Texas. That seems like pretty small representation for a state were volleyball is HUGE – at least on the girl’s/women’s side.

In terms of international responses, it probably won’t surprise anyone to hear that English-speaking countries account for about 60% of non-US participants. Canada takes up half that total. European countries fill out most of the remaining 40%.

Level and experience

Now let’s shift to their coaching situation. The vast majority of folks said they currently coach mainly high school or juniors, which fits pretty well with the pyramid structure of participation in the sport. There are a lot more kids’ teams needing coaches than adult teams. When you add in that blue slice in between on the chart representing Middle School you get more than 75% of coaches working with players in the 12-18 year-old age range. On top of that, quite a few of those folks also coach secondarily in that age group (e.g. high school coaches who also coach juniors). Plus, a number of college and other upper level coaches also coach juniors.

It’s a pretty mixed bag when it comes to how long people have been coaching at their current primary level.

When it comes to how much experience people have overall, I was a little surprised that more than half are at 10+ years. And the biggest portion of that is 20+! My suspicion there is that my content broadly appeals to folks who are past the drill collection phase of the early years of coaching. They understand more what they don’t know.

Things get interesting…